Elsie

i. m. Elizabeth O’Kane


The smell of sponge cake cooling
on the rack; clear vegetable soup
with pasta, not potatoes. Bottles

stacked up in the shed like a wine cellar:
red lemonade delivered every week
by a man on a float. The radio announcing

football scores like the shipping news. Needles darting
in and out: a bolero jacket for the baby. A landscape
drying on the sideboard. Mills &Boons along the shelf;

photos everywhere. Her hands on your face, her fingers
pulling across your forehead, as you sit on the sheepskin
rug, your head in her lap. It’s your sister’s turn.

A few minutes longer, you say. Just a few minutes longer.